


The sparks on your tongue

by 221b_hound



Series: The Gladstone Variations (AU of Guitar Man) [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music, Band Fic, John used to be in a band, John's Voice, M/M, Sherlock's Voice, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:08:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the Gladstone Variations AU version of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/982312%22">Violent, Sweet, Perfect Words</a> in the Guitar Man universe.</p><p>Some people at the Met think Sherlock talks too much. But after a year longing to hear that voice, John's in no mood to listen to those opinions. He's thinks Sherlock will think him maudlin for the attachment to his voice. He has no idea what his voice means to Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The sparks on your tongue

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a lyric from Matt Nathanson's Come on Get Higher.
> 
> The story references numerous songs from the Guitar Man universe: Binary, This Ghost, Illuminated, Copper Beaches, Never Sunset and Reforged.

Sherlock is on fire, seeing everything – all the connections, crude and fine; the filaments of cause and effect, however small. It’s only a six, in the scheme of things – pre-Moriarty, not enough to get him dressed, let alone out of the house.

But this is post-Moriarty, and Sherlock is at last home again and the rebuilding of his life has gone in unexpected directions.  There is the band, such a ridiculous idea, but is the source of such uncomplicated pleasure, and he has come to appreciate uncomplicated pleasures. There’s respite in the music, and connection too, and he would not now give it up for the world.

There’s the work, too, still necessary as breathing. He and John have, through the blog, plenty of non-Met cases, but the Met is still where the most interesting cases come from. Therefore, he must learn to build new bridges and show those bureaucrats – for there are some who still doubt – that he is no charlatan.

Impatiently, Sherlock waits for the Sergeant to catch up and make his notes. _What’s so hard about spelling polyurethane?_ _Spell it like it sounds, man._ He sees (as he always sees everything) the terse exchange taking place between John and that moron Beaton, who makes Tad Anderson look like a shining light in the forensics field. John is furious about something. He is working up to a towering rage, and in Sherlock’s experience, John’s most towering rages are only about one thing. One _person_.

The best and least expected direction his life has taken is John, or rather, what he and John now have together. Before the Year in Hell, Sherlock had cordoned off and repressed the glimmers of longing, but that year Away, and John’s response on his return, have removed the barriers and weights of inertia. As a result, all that longing is requited and instead of diminishing, desire and its satisfaction are growing exponentially.

Sherlock’s understanding of love is incomplete, but he knows this much. He and John set each other alight and quench each other; they are at once the longing that burns and the fulfilment that calms; their friendship remains the steadfast rock under the heat of desire, and John loves him, and he loves John and he will never ever ever get enough of what they now have.

Sherlock hears Beaton say ‘Mouthy bastard, never shuts up, does he?” followed by “Does he shut up in bed?” Then he sees Beaton making a faint but unmistakably obscene motion with his hips with a leer on his face. _Ah, he is intimating that John makes me fellate him in order to shut me up. Idiot. John likes my voice. He has a strong emotional and erotic attachment to it._ Indeed, John encourages Sherlock’s bedroom vocalisations, no matter how full Sherlock’s mouth may be at the time. Sherlock loses the ability to speak coherent sentences when John’s hands and mouth are on him anyway, so it’s all a little moot. 

Sherlock catches himself in a smug smile and forces his attention back to the idiot policeman who has still managed to misspell polyurethane, despite the help. He launches into further explanations of clues and reasoning, liberally interspersed with a commentary on the failings of the attending officers.

He still hears, however, John’s spirited and suddenly curtailed snarl at Beaton. “If you had bothered to _listen_ , Sherlock has solved this case, with that _poncy voice_. He doesn’t stop _talking_ because he doesn’t stop _seeing_ , and he saw everything you need to find your killer and all the evidence to make it stick in court. He solves crimes with _that poncy voice_. That voice saves lives. It…”

Sherlock sees John grind his teeth down on a torrent that wants to follow those words, but even John riled to this extent does not share things so private with someone so obnoxious. Sherlock can hear the words, though, as clearly as if John had spoken them.

_It is a voice I hardly heard for one long, horrible year, and I ws terrified I’d never hear it again. The voice that aggravates you is precious to me._

Well, that isn’t _quite_ how John would put it, but the sentiment would be the same. Sherlock knows that people make this mistake. They make the assumption that John does not love Sherlock mouthing off the way he does, even when Sherlock is being an obnoxious prat, even when he's insulting John along with the rest of them. They fail to notice that although Sherlock is frequently a dick, often rude and impatient and callous and stupendously oblivious to the mundane, all of those things, yes, but John _knows_ him. He knows all the other things Sherlock can be. Sherlock Holmes has a hundred facets and John Watson loves every single one of them. Even the facets that are hard to love. Especially the facets that nobody else sees.

It’s not the only reason Sherlock loves John so deeply, but it’s one of the reasons. So, assuming that John’s love is _conditional_ is an egregious error, but Sherlock won’t correct them on it, any more than John does. It is none of their business, and if they are too stupid to see the truth of what they are to each other, well, no wonder they can’t solve simple murders like this.

At which point Sherlock completes his series of deductions and explanations and stands, looking irritated at the Met officers.

John gives Beaton a meaningful look, full of _I Told You So_ and also _You Are a Fuckturd_ and a good dose of _Never Speak to Me Again, Not Even in a Professional Capacity_ and moves away. Beaton, wise for once in his life, makes no attempt to mend fences.

“We done here?” John asks, and Sherlock states, loudly and emphatically, that they’d have been done ages ago if Sergeant Polyurethane knew how to spell. It makes John laugh, a little guiltily, and then he tells Sherlock he was brilliant. Sherlock agrees with him, which makes John laugh more freely.

Still, in the cab home, John is reticent. _He is hoping that I did not hear the argument_ , Sherlock realises, _or at least that I won’t comment on it. Why…? Oh._

_He thinks that I will think he's being overly sentimental about my voice. Doesn’t he realise…?._

_Oh. He **doesn't**. _

_Well_ , Sherlock decides, _I can remedy that._ And he can. He just has to make himself own the surge of sentiment that is flickering under his heartbeat. He used to disdain such things. He spurned them as a disadvantage and crushed them or locked them away.

But that was before, and this is now, and this is John. Right now, Sherlock wants nothing more than to get John home and naked and sweaty and moaning and breathless and Saying. Wonderful. Things.

Sherlock smiles sideways at John, a slightly self-conscious expression, and John gives him a wary smile back. He catches the want in Sherlock’s pale eyes though, and responds immediately in kind.

Sherlock’s grin broadens into a much less complicated expression.

At Baker Street, Sherlock shoves a handful of notes at the driver and practically pulls John out of the car, through the door and up the stairs into the flat. John’s laughing and cheerfully holds his hands aloft as Sherlock slams the door and proceeds to unbuckle John’s belt.

“You love my voice,” Sherlock says, whipping the belt away.

John raises an eyebrow. He seems to be steeling himself for a jibe. What he says is: “You hate saying the obvious.”

Sherlock ducks his head to suckle at John’s neck for a moment before nipping a line up his throat. “You. Love. My. Voice.” He says again, deep and sultry, and is delighted at the shiver this elicits from his lover.

“Yes. Well. It’s gorgeous. You bastard.” Despite the aggrieved tone, John’s already breathing hard. Getting hard.

“You’re an idiot, John.”

“Is this a test to see how much I love your voice while you’re being a dick?” John tilts his head back, offering more of his throat to Sherlock’s mouth.

“No. This is a confession, because you have missed the obvious. As usual.”

“Sweet talker.”

Sherlock laughs and draws away to cradle John’s face in his expressive hands. His thumbs caress John’s cheekbones, just below his eyes, then continue to brush over the tops of John’s ears. John’s ears are surprisingly sensitive. Sherlock likes to lick them. He resists, temporarily.

“You think I’ll mock your sentiment. You forget,” he says, “That I’m the one who called Baker Street when I was gone, as regularly as could safely be done. On at least three occasions when it was not safe at all. You’re not the only one here with a sentimental attachment to the sound of a voice.”

John’s eyes go wide, then he blinks.

“Your voice, John,” Sherlock kisses John’s nose, his cheeks, his brow, his temple, his mouth, between words, between breaths, emphasis after tiny emphasis, “Your voice kept me alive. Your voice kept me going when I hadn’t strength of my own. Your voice, John, **_your_** _voice_. You have no idea what it does to me. You have no idea what it means.”

“I’m getting the picture,” John slides his hands into Sherlock’s hair and brings their mouths together for a long, slow, passionate kiss. Sherlock succumbs for a long while, but he’s not done yet. They’re not yet at the pitch where speech abandons him.

“John, John, John,” quick presses of his lips to cheek and throat and lips, “When you sing, you give me words for things I lack the… the skill to express. Your voice is my voice when I cannot speak. When I don’t know how to say…” Sherlock breathes, his mind stumbling on how to pin words to these sensations, thereby proving his point.

John kisses him. "I love you"

"Yes." Sherlock kisses John again, touches him, "That I love you. That you are... my...my anchor and my light…” It all seems inadequate and stupid, coming out of his own mouth. To demonstrate John’s greater prowess at this sort of thing, Sherlock begins to sing lines and snatches of song.

_Alone is not a trophy_

John breathes sharply as Sherlock's hands slide under his shirt and caress his spine, up to the wing of his shoulder blades, but Sherlock knows it's a response to more than the touch.

_And lonely isn't strong_

Sherlock feels the motion of John's Adam's apple against the rising emotion of hearing those words in Sherlock's mouth, sung not just with him but for him. The words gifted back. _How did he not know?_ Sherlock thinks, fondly exasperated. His face is pressed into John’s shoulder, while his hands finish unfastening John’s button and fly, then splay across John’s hips, down the back of his jeans and under his pants to the swell of his arse. He pulls John close and sings softly into his ear.

_You don’t know the light you throw when you play this game._

John moans and presses against him, kissing Sherlock’s shoulder in turn, mouthing at the muscle, while he grabs two handfuls of bum and squeezes. Their hips are pressed hard together now, their arousal slightly uncomfortable and wholly exquisite trapped between them.

_And you are, you are, you are, you are, you are illumination_

Sherlock has unbuttoned John’s shirt now and is murmuring melodies and words between the kisses he is planting down John’ sternum.

Little seeds of _you are light and growth and home, too. How did you not know what you are?_

 _You are the source of all that’s bright_ , he sings.

John is suspended a moment longer, holding on to Sherlock while Sherlock sings and kisses and reveals his heart, and suddenly John makes a deeply charged groan, rising to a wanton growl, and Sherlock loves that sound too, he glories in being the cause of it, and he stands, arms loose, submitting himself to John’s hands as John strips him of his shirt.

When John licks and sucks one hard nipple then the other, Sherlock hums and says: "You make so many words for me, John." And he sings again, his voice going rough as he arches against John's lips and teeth and tongue.

_I’m awake again  
_ _And laughing and flying  
_ _I’m alive because you remade me_

And then:

_You make the world electrifying  
And everything is new_

John has unfastened his trousers and is kneeling now, licking and nibbling down Sherlock's chest and stomach, sucking on his navel, which is an erogenous zone Sherlock never expected to have but, well, the evidence is in, and his voice breaks slightly in a moan and he chooses his next lines because they were not written for him, but they speak for him anyway.

 _And we’re too small to matter to oceans and skies_  
And our hearts are too broken to love after lies  
But we do

That's when John's mouth slips open and hot and glorious over Sherlock's aching cock, but no, that won't do, that is not the point at all. Sherlock extracts himself and drops down to kneel too, to kiss John's salty mouth and bite at the ridge of his ear.

"Bed."

John wraps his arms around Sherlock's waist and brings them both to their feet, and Sherlock takes John's hand and leads him to the bedroom. He pushes John onto the bed with a grin, leans over him to tug off John's shoes and jeans and pants. He indulges himself, pressing his nose into the heat at the crease of John’s thighs, and John obligingly spreads his legs, but that’s not what Sherlock wants now, either.

Briefly, Sherlock hovers his long body over his lover's, kisses him, nibbles his ear and says "Speak to me." Then he kisses John’s neck and clavicle, shoulder, biceps, and his hand caresses John’s chest and ribs as he shifts to lie on his back.

John isn’t saying anything, and Sherlock realises his mistake. John is tongue-tied suddenly at the request. Sherlock moves slightly to gather John in, tug at his shoulders gently. “Say my name.” It comes out less a command and more of a breathless plea, as though hearing his name on John’s tongue is the most necessary thing there is. Which it is.

John ( _clever, marvellous John_ ) takes the hint immediately, curling into Sherlock’s side, stretching to press his warm lips to Sherlock’s ear. “Sherlock,” he says, sibilant and sensual, “Sherlock.  Sherlock.” His voice is a hushed, warm breath almost fluttering with the heartbeat behind it. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s heart beats faster. It always does at these moments, and he takes a sharp breath and holds it, like he can hold in the air that John breathed out in saying his name; like he can hold the moment. This precious moment.

Then he exhales and, impatient with want, he turns his face to nuzzle at John’s. He nudges him, and wriggles, trying to insinuate his long, pale body into the position he craves.

John, laughing again, sprinkling kisses over Sherlock’s skin, murmuring his lover’s name, takes his cue and moves to cover Sherlock's body with his own. He settles between Sherlock’s spreading legs. He kisses his face and neck and chest, breathing Sherlock’s name still, flexing his hips gently against Sherlock’s groin for the pleasure of the pressure without yet too much friction. 

Sherlock wants more. Always more. So much more. There will always be more of this he wants, to make up for the hundreds of days he didn’t know he wanted it, or knew but thought he couldn’t ever have it.

'Tell me, John. Tell me,” says Sherlock, lifting his feet , bending his knees and spreading them further, revelling in the way John's thighs settle snug and warm in the crook. 

“Christ, you are gorgeous.”

Sherlock arches his hips so that the cleft of his bum insists on contact with John’s scrotum. The motion is slow but insistent, and he has whispered ‘Please’ before he realises he means to.

John grins and reaches for the lube that Sherlock is already handing to him. Sherlock flips the cap up, squeezes a massive dollop of the stuff onto John’s fingers and John reaches between them to smear it over Sherlock’s tight entrance.

Sherlock groans, arches, pants, thrusts, clutches at John’s shoulders and says _now, now, now,_ even after John’s fingers slide inside him in careful stages.

Sherlock’s never needed many words to indicate what he wants when they are naked and slick like this. He uses a few of them now, though, for the _more_ that he wants.

“Tell… me. More. John. More. Give me… the words." The last syllable hitches and disappears as John braces himself and, with a slow inexorable push, thrusts into Sherlock. Sherlock throws his head back. “Tell…me.”

John pushes in slowly, withdraws, pushes, leaning up on his elbows to look into Sherlock’s flushed face.

“I didn't know what I needed till you were there,” says John, in the rhythm of body and thought now. “When you were gone I heard you everywhere I went. _Everywhere_.” Where Sherlock loses speech in the flood of sensation, John finds words he might otherwise only put into music. “You make it… so you are… all I hear. You’re inside everything. Inside me.”

Sherlock resists pointing out that in fact John is inside _him_ , literally, but also metaphorically, and instead he says “Jooooooooohn” in that long, low, wanton way that means a million things, and a million more after that.

He can hardly form any other words. Not with the feel of John’s hard, hot cock sliding against the skin of his entrance, against the walls of his sphincter, the head of it against his prostate. Not with the top of John’s thighs brushing against the back of his own; John’s scrotum drawn up tight, the fuzzy golden hair tickling his arse initially before John’s balls follow the sensation with a harder, silkier pressure. Not with John’s abdomen against Sherlock’s own tight sac, John’s stomach, slick with Sherlock’s pre-ejaculate, sliding against his cock.  Not with John’s hands caressing his skin, John’s mouth tasting his,  John’s chest brushing his, and John’s breath on his face as he calls Sherlock ‘baby’ and ‘beautiful’ and ‘sweetheart’. Ridiculous names. Ridiculous. Sherlock is a little embarrassed that he loves those names so much. That John thinks such diminutives apply to him at all.

The rhythm is still steady, sensuous, but faster now, deeper, and John props himself up to slip his hand between them and stroke Sherlock’s cock. He is thrusting and stroking and gazing with wide blue eyes down into Sherlock’s grey ones.

“Say my name, baby. Sherlock. Please. Baby, say my name.” His breath is hitching with the plea.

“John. Joooohn. Joooooooohn.”

“That’s it. That’s beautiful, Sherlock. Beautiful. Your voice is beautiful. Let me hear you, baby. Let me hear you, Sherlock. Please. Yes. Yes, let me hear you."

And Sherlock, replete with the sound of John’s voice and breath and heartbeat in his ears, in his entire body, moans “John!”. He babbles “Johnjohnjohnjohnohn” and then he cries out incoherently, and so loudly, and comes and comes and comes.

The sound inspires John, it does, and he thrusts and slides, steady, hard, fast, perfect, his voice starting “Sher….” and vanishing to a hoarse cry before he finishes the name.

John collapses, panting, on top of Sherlock and Sherlock, satisfied beyond measure, winds his arms around John and kisses John’s face and shoulder between heaving breaths.

Eventually, John recovers sufficiently to wriggle aside, but he leaves one hand on Sherlock at all times as he slips away. They are lying side by side, damp and sticky and content, and John’s fingers rub little circles on Sherlock’s cum-slick belly. Sherlock closes his eyes and smiles, because he likes that. He is a mess and aching pleasantly and in no hurry to clean up. He likes it when John doesn’t hurry to wipe them down. This is evidence, this mess. The scent and texture and sensation of what it is to be loved.

“I love you,” Sherlock says, eyes closed, his hand drifting up to take John’s. (Sticky fingers, and now his fingers are sticky too, and that’s fine. It’s all just wonderfully fine.)

John moves, rolls over, snugs into Sherlock’s side. Lips pressed to Sherlock’s ear he says: “I love you, too, you glorious git.”

Sherlock laughs.

“Oh,” says John suddenly, like a revelation. “Oh!”

He lurches sideways, scrabbles in the bedside cabinet, settles back on the bed. Sherlock cracks open an eye to see John writing furiously in a notebook. He raises an eyebrow. Opens his mouth.

“Shh!”

Sherlock shushes. When John has finished, he puts the notebook aside and slides back down into bed. He lays on his side and leans over to kiss Sherlock.

“You’re a terrific muse,” he says, “I wrote most of that song while you were Away. Never knew how to finish it.”

Sherlock raises his eyebrows.

“Later,” says John.

“Later,” agrees Sherlock, and he holds John to him, snuffling at the salty sweat on his skin. John laughs again, presses close.

“Shower,” he says.

“Not yet,” says Sherlock, nosing into the hollows in John’s throat, licking at the bones under the skin, at the mended flesh of his shoulder.

“All right.” John relaxes and lets Sherlock lick and kiss and nibble his way through the afterglow. John hums the melody of the song that he’ll finish soon.

Sherlock continues his ministrations until John falls into a contented doze. He presses his nose to John’s cheek, kisses the corner of his mouth, sighs and stills.

For the next little while, Sherlock listens to John breathe; to the sound of his life become perfect.


End file.
